Chapter 5
Chapter five
Iwoke up thinking about Darian.
His voice had threaded through my dreams all night—low and rhythmic, firelight flickering across his weathered face as he spun words into something that felt more like prophecy than story.
A myth from your home region. Your culture. Your family.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to Ivy's soft breathing across the room. I had exactly one myth that fit all three categories. I'd known that when Vince gave the assignment. I'd known it when I didn't raise my hand to ask if we could choose something else.
Some part of me wanted to tell it. That was the unsettling thing. After six years of keeping Darian's story locked away, some part of me was ready to let it out.
I wasn't sure I trusted that part.
"You're awake early," Ivy mumbled, rolling over. "Even for you."
"Couldn't sleep." I swung my legs out of bed, reaching for my phone. "Dining hall opens in twenty. You want coffee?"
"Always." She squinted at me through sleep-crusted eyes. "You okay? You seem... tense."
"I'm always tense. It's part of my charm."
She snorted and threw her pillow at me. I caught it and tossed it back.
That was the thing about Ivy. She noticed things, but she also knew when not to push.
The Mythology classroom had been rearranged. Instead of rows facing the board, desks were clustered into groups of five or six, angled inward, forcing eye contact. My stomach dropped.
James had been in every single one of my classes today.
Every one. PE yesterday had been a fluke, I'd told myself.
Mythology was a large lecture—easy to ignore him.
But today he'd appeared in my morning Psych, then again in my afternoon Wilderness First Aid, always a few seats away, always catching my eye with that easy smile.
Someone had shifted his schedule. Or the universe was personally invested in my discomfort.
At least I had Ivy in this class. One familiar face who didn't make my skin hum.
I scanned the room and found her waving at me from a cluster near the windows. Relief flickered through me—then died.
James was in her group.
Of course he was.
The hum flickered to life beneath my skin, that traitorous warmth I couldn't seem to silence. He looked up as I hesitated, and his face did that thing it always did when he saw me—opened, softened.
I considered turning around. Finding another group. Claiming a bathroom emergency.
"Lumi!" Ivy called. "Saved you a seat!"
Too late.
I crossed the room and dropped into the empty desk beside her, deliberately not looking at James. He was two seats over, close enough that I could smell pine and hay.
"This is going to be so fun," Ivy said, oblivious to my internal crisis. "I love hearing people's family stories."
"Fun," I echoed. "Sure."
The other two members of our group introduced themselves—Tim, a quiet guy from New Mexico with turquoise rings on three fingers, and Ellen, a sharp-eyed girl from somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
Professor Tomlinson moved between groups, explaining the format. When he reached ours, his eyes met mine for just a moment—checking in, I realized. Making sure I was okay.
I looked away.
"Share your myths conversationally," he said. "No formal presentations. Just tell the story the way it was told to you. After everyone shares, discuss: what does the myth do? What behavior does it shape? What does it reveal about the culture that created it?" He paused. "Who wants to start?"
Ivy's hand shot up. "I'll go!"
Her myth was a Hawaiian legend about Pele and Hi'iaka—sisters, jealousy, transformation, the birth of volcanic islands. She told it with animated gestures and sound effects, and by the end, even Ellen was smiling.
"It's about loyalty," Ivy said when she finished. "And what happens when you break it. Hawaiian culture is all about 'ohana—family, connection. The myth teaches that betraying your family has cosmic consequences."
Tim went next. A Navajo story about Coyote stealing fire for humans, getting burned in the process, forever marked by his own greed and generosity. James followed with a Montana rancher's tale about a ghost horse that appeared before blizzards—a warning, a guide, depending on who was telling it.
He told it simply, without embellishment, and I found myself leaning forward despite my resolve to stay detached. His voice had a rhythm to it, unhurried and warm, like he had all the time in the world and wanted to spend it here, with these people, sharing something that mattered.
The hum purred.
Stop it.
Ellen shared a Salish story about salmon people who could shed their scales and walk as humans. Then everyone was looking at me.
"Lumi?" Ivy prompted. "Your turn."
I could feel Vince watching from across the room. Not staring—he was too careful for that—but aware. Waiting.
I took a breath.
"This story was told to me when I was ten," I said. "By a friend who was the leader of a small town near where I grew up. A man named Darian."
The name felt strange in my mouth, spoken aloud after so many years. Darian, with his weathered face and knowing eyes, sitting by Gregor's fire and spinning words like thread.
"He called it a Trickster myth, but I'm not sure that's right. The woman in the story wasn't a trickster, exactly. She was just... different."
I paused, gathering the threads of memory. The fire crackling. The smell of woodsmoke and pine. Darian's voice, low and rhythmic, weaving the story into being. He'd told it to a crowd who understood what packs and ferals really meant. I didn't have that luxury.
"There was a woman born between worlds," I began, choosing my words carefully. "Not quite belonging to the villages, not quite belonging to the mountain tribes. She had no home, no people—only herself and the wild spaces where outcasts go."
James had gone still. I could feel his attention like a physical thing, focused and intent.
"She was called the Trickster, though that wasn't quite right. She didn't trick—she revealed. She showed people what they really were beneath their masks and rules. The villages feared her laughter. The tribes distrusted her joy. Both called her dangerous."
I let myself fall into the rhythm Darian had used, the cadence of oral tradition.
"But in the high places lived the ferals—people who'd lost themselves to rage or pain, becoming pure instinct. Outcasts even among outcasts. Everyone feared them, hunted them, called them monsters." I paused. "But the Trickster? She sought them out."
"Why?" Elena asked, leaning forward.
"Because ferals couldn't lie. They were exactly what they appeared to be—wild, dangerous, broken, but honest. No politics, no manipulation. The Trickster would walk into their territories with no weapons, no fear, just herself."
The classroom had gone quiet. Not just our group—the clusters nearby had stilled too, students pausing mid-conversation to listen.
"The first feral she met tried to kill her, of course.
But she laughed—not cruel laughter, but the kind that comes from recognizing something absurd.
'You're trying so hard to be scary,' she told him, 'but you're just hurt.
' The feral stopped, confused. No one had ever seen past his rage to the pain beneath. "
I heard Darian's voice layered under my own now, the story telling itself.
"She didn't tame him. She accepted him. Exactly as he was. She didn't try to fix him or change him or make him safe. She just stayed. Brought food. Told jokes to the wind. Danced under the moon. And slowly, the feral remembered things besides rage. Found something new. Something besides pain."
Tim was watching me with an intensity that made me want to look away. I didn't.
"One by one, she found them all. The ferals everyone had given up on.
The ones too broken to save. She didn't save them either—she just existed near them, radiating this ridiculous, impossible joy.
And they began to follow her. Not as pets or servants, but as themselves.
A pack of honest monsters and one laughing woman who belonged nowhere but with them. "
"What happened to her?" Ivy asked softly.
"The villages and tribes united against her.
Called her an abomination. Said she was creating an army.
They hunted her to the highest mountain, surrounded her and her feral pack.
" I paused, my voice dropping the way Darian's had.
"But when they attacked, something unexpected happened.
The ferals didn't defend her—she defended them.
Stood between the hunters and her broken pack, laughing at them all.
'You call them monsters,' she said, 'but they've never lied to me.
Never pretended to be anything but what they are. Can you say the same?'"
Silence.
"Did she die?" James asked. His voice was rough.
"The story has different endings depending on who tells it. Some say she died laughing. Some say she became something else—not village, not tribe, but pure wild joy. Others say she's still out there, finding the ones too broken for normal life, showing them that broken doesn't mean worthless."
I looked at my hands, suddenly unable to meet anyone's eyes.
"They say her descendants walk among us still. People who don't fit anywhere but make everywhere home. Who find joy in chaos and truth in the wild things others fear."
The words hung in the air. I'd said too much. Told it too well. Let too much of myself slip through.
"It's just a myth," I said, echoing Darian. "That's what he always said after. Just a myth."
Silence.
Then Ivy said, softly, "That's beautiful."
"It's sad," Ellen countered. "She dies in most versions."
"Maybe that's the point." Tim was studying his rings, turning them slowly. "Heroes don't always win. Sometimes the story is about trying anyway."
I didn't say anything. My chest felt tight, too full, like the words had taken up space I couldn't spare.